The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 55
The inquisitorial methods created serious problems, specially for those arriving after the events of Barcelona of
May 1937. 48 Two foreigners that were expelled from Brazil, the Polish Jewish barber Ejber Bajnerman and the
German Ernest Joske, 49 who were arrested in São Paulo after the »putsch« of November 1935 for their
involvment, both were active members in their respective unions, they were expelled by the Brazilian
govenment in June 1936. After they succeeded in escaping before arriving to their home countries, they went
to Paris to enroll in the International Brigades. They arrived in Spain at the end of May 1937. On August 8 the
Communist Party of France communicated to the Spanisch Communist Party, suppplying the address of Joske
in Albacete, asking them »to do all what was nessary to help the Brazilan comrades, except for Bajnerman and
Joske, about whom are made some restrictions, since formerly they were active Totskyites, and even if they had
recognized their mistakes, they tried to go to Mexico, what demonstrates that they didn’t give up their ideas.
Joske seems to have succeeded in undoing the »suspicions« about him. Among the documentation about the
Brazilian Brigade members in the Comintern files in Moscow a report from the beginning of 1938 indicates that
he passed through unharmed at the Commissariat of War of the International Brigades headquarters in
Barcelona, making his way through the Brigades and indicating his intention to go to Chile or to Mexico.
This was not the case for Besouchet and for Bajnerman, for whom there is no documentary evidence later than
August 1937, and not for Besouchet. A report of January 15, 1939, signed by E. M. Elliott reproduces an
information given by the Major Costa Leite concerning Besouchet that he had a relationship with Trotskyists
and that he was killed during the May events of 1937 in Barcelona. There is no concluding information about
the date of his death, however there is no doubt about the responsibility of the communists. Later, the
Besouchet family received the information that Alberto had been shot during the final retreat of the
International Brigades from Barcelona (in October 1938), together with Anarchists and Trotskyistes arrested
there. 50
Among the documents in his dossier in the Moscow files, there is a letter that allows us to speculate that his
death probably did not occure after May 1937. The letter was sent by Castro, the nickname of Honório Freitas
Guimarães, member of the Politburo of the PCB (also known as »Martins«), when he was waiting in Paris for his
visa to enter the Soviet Union, dated in Paris, 24.9.1937. Not only the handwriting served to identify »Castro«;
Guimarães had been educated in England (Eton), the letter was written in English, usually Brazilian
communists communicated with the Comintern or the other sections in Castillan or in French. It is also
worthwile to remember that Guimarães participated in the judgment and execution of Elza Fernandes in 1936,
her own comrades who falsely accused her of having delivered information to the police allowing the arrest of
Arthur Ewert (she was the companion of the then general secretary of the PCB, Adalberto Fernandes Miranda).
Finally, in this correspondance concerning Besouchet, classified as a »leftist«, a report was made about the
48 The May-events in Barcelona , the armed uprising of the pro-communist against the mainly anarchosyndicalist
and »poumist« forces were described by George Orwell in his eyewitness-account: My Catalunya
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49 DEOPS-SP, no. 1698 and 509 www.
50 Folha de São Paulo, 13.7.1988, 18.